Obesity Rate Climbs to New High in US

The obesity rate of US adults rose to a new high in 2015 reveals Gallup survey.

Adult obesity increased from 25.5% in 2008 to 28.0% this last year, in 2015. This left 35.6% of adults reported as overweight, 34.6% as normal weight, and 1.8% as underweight. Blacks have the highest rate of obesity at 35.6%, followed by Hispanics at 28.6%, whites at 27.0%, and Asians at 9.8%. Whites, however, have experienced the sharpest increase in obesity since 2008, undergoing a change of +2.8 percentage points.

“Overall, adults who are currently obese are about 4.7 times more likely to be diabetic compared with those who are normal weight, a probability that doesn't vary significantly for individual racial or ethnic groups,” reported Gallup.

The diabetes rate for US adults has also climbed during this past year, to 11.4%. Again, Blacks have the largest percentage of diabetes diagnoses with 14.5%. Whites come in second with 11.0%, Hispanics with 10.7%, and Asians with 5.2%.

Past research has indicated that obesity, and the chronic conditions associated therewith, cost the US economy $153 billion per annum. Individually, obesity not only affects the physical aspects of wellbeing but may affect the financial and social aspects, as well. The reverse is also true, where high wellbeing may reduce the risks of becoming obese.

States, communities, and workplaces have the ability to combat obesity by helping to develop interventions that target behaviors and factors linked to obesity including exercise habits, produce consumption, healthy eating, smoking, depression, food insecurity, unsafe exercise environments, lack of personal doctor, or poor dental hygiene.

Data was collected from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that calculated the body mass index of individuals from self-reported weight and height. The sample incorporated more than 350,000 phone interviews from 2008-2012, and over 175,000 phone interviews from 2013-2015 from adults 18 years and older living in all 50 states and DC.